<?php
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 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'They use <strong>*scales*</strong>!',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="ranch">
	<h2>Ranch</h2>
	<p>
		I tried to use my bowel with the measurements on it, but it didn&apos;t work out.
		The labels are strangely distributed (100, 500, and 1000 millilitres) and due to the slope of the bowel, I&apos;m having trouble guessing where to fill to to get other amounts.
		It seems quite obvious that the metric measurements weren&apos;t an intended feature of the bowel, but were just added as an afterthought.
		I ended up making this batch as well by just guessing and pouring without being able to record what balance I came up with.
	</p>
	<p>
		I figured I needed to find a way to get <strong>*actual*</strong> metric measuring cups, but I&apos;ve been having difficulty in finding them online every time I go to look for them.
		Finally, I changed my search query to see if I could figure out what a metric-using country&apos;s citizens use in the kitchen.
		Surely they <strong>*must*</strong> have some sort of larger measuring vessel than mere <strong>*spoons*</strong>, right?
		Actually, it turns out not.
		Also, they don&apos;t even use the spoons either, which is why finding metric spoons was so difficult.
		Instead, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/equipment/dear-americans-fed-stupid-cup-measurements/">they use scales</a>.
		It&apos;s actually a much better system, when you think about it.
		I&apos;ve always thought that for certain ingredients, a &quot;cup&quot; could refer to a range of actual amounts.
		The ingredient could be finely or loosely packed.
		For cut ingredients, they could be finely or coarsely cut, leading to more or less air intermixed.
		The author of the article also mentions heaping cups.
		These problems of course don&apos;t apply to <strong>*liquid*</strong> measurements, but if I&apos;m going to end up writing recipes, and it looks like I am unfortunately going to need to, I should get with the program.
		I found time to get a kitchen scale after work, but I don&apos;t have anything left to make tonight.
	</p>
	<p>
		Speaking of writing recipes, It&apos;s pretty much impossible to find freely-licensed vegan recipes online.
		I&apos;ve done without certain things for too long though, so I&apos;m going to need to figure out how to make these things myself.
		I&apos;ll probably start with agreed-upon bases found online, then tweak them and add my own ingredients on top of the original.
		For example, it seems every vegan ranch recipe I can find calls for vegan mayonnaise, soy milk, onion powder, and garlic powder.
		With everyone agreeing on this, surely that combination of four ingredients, especially without measurements or ratios, can&apos;t possibly be copyrighted, right?
		So it should be fine to start with those ingredients, find my own ratio for them, then add other things to taste.
	</p>
	<p>
		Back to the ranch, and speaking of adding things to taste, I decided to draw some inspiration from the back of a ranch dressing bottle from the store.
		It says the salad sauce includes vinegar, and everything&apos;s better with vinegar, right?
		A neighbour said I should add salt.
		Adding both, the dressing certainly smells and tastes a lot more like ranch now.
		It also watered it down though, so I had to add more mayonnaise to thicken it up.
		I might start using flour or something for that.
		A coworker says I should try adding lemon juice as well, though that&apos;ll need to wait until next time.
	</p>
	<p>
		It might be a while before I continue work on this recipe though.
		I&apos;ve sort of been binging on ranch dressing lately since I haven&apos;t had it in years.
		I need to lay off for a bit now.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			You make a good point about CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from motor vehicles.
			It&apos;d be great if people switched to electric cars or the like*.
			However, that&apos;d really only help once the power grid in the area the car is used has been switched over to a renewable resource.
			I too would love to see Portugal move in the direction of wind-based energy.
		</p>
		<p>
			* It&apos;s worth noting though that I&apos;ve never even owned (or even driven) a car, so I&apos;m not sure how difficult such a switch would be.
			For the time being, electric cars are more expensive, that&apos;s a deterrent for many people to make the leap.
			With rising fuel prices though ... maybe people will start making the switch soon.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest log</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve come to the conclusion, once again, that <code>minequest</code> is a doomed project.
		I honestly believe this time that given enough time, I could come up with enough bonus abilities to support all the items I need to.
		However, the quality would be degraded in doing so; I can only come up with so many <strong>*good*</strong> ideas; there&apos;re only so many useful, non-game-breaking options.
		In fact, the quality has <strong>*already*</strong> degraded.
		I&apos;ve already built bonuses I wouldn&apos;t&apos;ve even considered as a good idea before, and I&apos;ve split bonuses that should logically be the same bonus into fragments just to extend the number of available bonuses.
	</p>
	<p>
		Truth be told, the premise of <code>minequest</code> mutated from a much simpler concept.
		The idea was that a small amount of special inventory slots would be available; say, six or eight.
		Each slot would only have a single item that could be placed in it, and as long as the slot contains the item, you&apos;d have access to some extra functionality in the inventory menu.
		But how boring is that?
		You just put items there and leave them forever.
		You don&apos;t even get to choose which items you use.
		If I recall, only two items had been decided before the idea was refined and became <code>minequest</code>.
		A furnace would let you smelt stuff without an in-world node for it.
		The only advantages were that you could take the smelting process with you and no one could steal your items when you were away.
		The second of these issues has been fixed in Minetest Game though.
		A locked chest would allow you to access a second inventory, effectively doubling the size of the player&apos;s main inventory.
	</p>
	<p>
		Things got out of hand though.
		The plans quickly exploded into something unmanageable.
		And with each iteration, the problem grows.
		I thought I&apos;d refined the project into something completable this time, but I was wrong, at least if I want to have something I can be proud of in the end and something I&apos;d actually want in my game world.
		So anyway, I&apos;m giving up on <code>minequest</code>.
		Again.
		Even though this is the furthest I&apos;ve come so far to making that ill-conceived dream a reality.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ll start a new project that better captures my current goals for my game world.
		Each mining statistic will have some effect on the player&apos;s capabilities, but nothing too fancy.
		Stats for probability-based mineral drops will increase the player&apos;s ability to control whether they get the drop or not.
		Stats for minerals that can be made into tool heads (in other words, I&apos;ll look at the ingredients for the tool recipe excluding the sticks) will be used to reduce tool wear for those tools, even eventually to the point of outright reversing tool wear.
		Some overlap between these will exist: saplings help control leaf/sapling drops for their respective tree or bush, but also influence tool wear for wooden tools, and sand/gravel drops will both influence cobble/sand/gravel drops and tool wear for stone tools, as silver sand can be smelted into stone.
		Or maybe I won&apos;t do the tool wear thing, but non-node mineral drops will be used to increase the number of an item you get from nodes when mining them.
		I&apos;ll go through the remaining stats with no bonus after applying those categories, and find some sort of bonus to give them.
		This&apos;ll bring the number of bonuses down to a <strong>*much*</strong> more manageable level, so I don&apos;t have to compromise my work just to complete the project.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
